Previously: The girls were super sure Melissa is A (which probably means she isn’t), Garrett was arrested for murder (which probably means he didn’t) and Ezra was fired (which is probably still making me laugh).
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unmAsked
Lorraine: Our fine looking fibbers are at the Hastings House, watching news coverage of Garrett’s murder arrest. Spencer tells the girls that her mom knows someone working the case, and that Jenna Marshall is the one who turned in the evidence against Garrett. Aria wants to know if this means they can finally lay Ali to rest, and I answer her, “No,” because we know there are at least two more seasons. Sorry girl.
Sweeney: Poor Aria. Not even her magnet for Getting All The Things She Wants Always Without Consequences can stand in the way of the will of the TV Gods.
Lor: Hanna still thinks Melissa and Jenna are guilty parties. Speak of the forever-pregnant devil, Melissa comes in and says, “love gone wrong.” Spencer asks her to explain and she starts by saying that she knew Ian didn’t kill Alison and the Liars are not the murdering types. And then, in the middle of this villain-esque speech, Melissa gets distracted by Aria’s ice cream. THAT WOULD BE EVERY ONE OF MY VILLAIN SPEECHES. Seriously, if I ever turn to a life of crime and you want to stop me, just show up with some sweets.
“I’M GOING TO STEAL ALL YOUR MONEY AND DESTROY– shit, is that chocolate?”
Sweeney: Melissa’s single most endearing moment to date.
Lor: Melissa continues that she knows how Jenna went blind, and so did Garrett. If he killed Alison, it was probably because he thought she deserved it. I’m pretty sure that’s usually how murder works. Melissa savors her ice cream, and it’s only slightly more villan-esque than that one time Ian drank some milk.
Sweeney: No way, man. Ian drinking that milk will always be the most villainy performance of an otherwise innocuous act ever.
Sara: It’s nice that she’s trying, though!
Lor: Missed opportunity for a Traumaland Award show-down.
She leaves and not one second after the girls all get a text message from A. So either Melissa had that in the drafts box, she types really fast, or she’s heinous but not A.
Hanna thinks A is talking about the phone the Liars took from him/her. Spencer goes to answer the door and promptly comes back with an invitation to a masquerade ball for each of the Liars. UM. YES. I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS RIDICULOUS DEVELOPMENT. The last time we had a masquerade ball around here, I think it was in Fifty Shades of Darker. Unacceptable.
Emily says that A wants to play hide-and-seek. Spencer walks away from the table dramatically, looking after where Melissa exited. “Hide-and-seek was my favorite game with Melissa. You wanna know why? I always won.” She stares intently out the back door. It’s… kind of hilarious. I mean, I love BAMF Spencer, but this was just such a weird segue and she’s being really bad ass about essentially always winning at hide-and-seek.
Sara: Almost as good as the time she just said weird phrases in a creepy voice for an entire scene. Almost.
Lor: SHHHHHHH.
After the credits, Hanna, Aria and Emily are walking together. Hanna is going on and on about how Melissa is A. Aria has a great after school special line: Parties and body bags go together like drinking and driving. Or like high school students and their English teachers! Just sayin’, ABC Family. Just sayin’.
Sweeney: That was a hilarious little bit of the show commenting on itself because that is entirely not true in the real and actual world. (Or maybe it is and this just confirms why I prefer to stay at home eating chocolate pie and avoiding socializing.) The show’s self-aware moments are my absolute favorites.
Lor: Also, I guess the weather is getting chilly in Rosewood, because the girls are all wearing leather jackets. And Aria is wearing fingerless gloves.
To make sure we’re really, really clear on how the Liars all feel, Emily pipes up with, “I don’t trust Melissa as far as I can throw her and Ian’s fetus, but let’s not forget that Jenna also knows about the Jenna thing.” So, Hanna thinks it’s Melissa, Emily thinks it’s Jenna and Aria? “Ian’s fetus? Em, that’s disgusting.” Way to miss the point, girl. Hanna wraps up her pro-Melissa argument by pointing out that A is practically all-knowing, and the only person smarter than Spencer is Melissa.
Spencer arrives in time to hear that last bit and takes offense. She’s clearly thought about this before and makes an argument for why the gap in their IQ is virtually non-existent. (S: A+ for Spence.) She doesn’t want to give A back their phone, which means they have until midnight the next day to unmask A once and for all. (Close on the Gold Star, but tenses count.) Spencer wants them to go through the Gym Bag of Evidence all together and with fresh eyes, but not at her house since Melissa is there. Not at Hanna’s house either, because her mother pays too much attention to her. Aria suggest just meeting up after school because she has an idea.
We don’t get to hear the idea because Mona walks up to them. Aria fakes a conversation about shopping for a costume. Mona jumps into that saying that Blind Jenna is going, but since she dumped “Noel Con Man,” for “Seeing Eye Toby,” she’ll still go to the part. (S: THE FACT THAT SHE CALLED HER BLIND JENNA WAS THE BEST THING.) Mona says something in French and suggests that they go shopping at a vintage shop a few towns over. Each of the Liars begs out of it, leaving Mona upset that it’s just her, alone again.
Aria’s great idea is for the Liars to use Ezra’s Pedo-partment while he’s gone. (S: HATE.) Spencer notices his collection of tragic love stories while Emily flips through old photos and Hanna sits on Ezra’s bed. Aria blah blahs about how he checks in occasionally but she’s super sure this is the end. The writers are assholes and this is their way of giving us some false hope and informing us that no, they will not actually be over forever. Damn it.
Hanna gets a picture message from Mona, hugging Caleb. Now Mona knows Hanna lied about her after school plans. Hanna complains about having to lie to all of her loved ones and flops down on the bed dramatically. Aria: Hanna, do you mind? It’s kind of sacred ground.
Sweeney: MORE HATE. HATE MOST.
Sara: RETCH.
Lor: The girls are all shocked to hear this and say Aria really can keep a secret! Thankfully, we are spared any more of that disgusting talk by Spencer noticing a pen in the Gym Bag of Evidence marked, “Dougherty’s Landing.” Hanna looks it up online and finds that it’s a tiny airstrip in the middle of nowhere. Spencer remembers the postcard in the Gym Bag and Aria retrieves it. They realize it’s for a hotel (the Lost Woods Resort) near the airstrip. Aria guesses that the #1 on the back of the postcard means room #1.
We cut to night time. The wind is being really suspicious as the girls drive to the Lost Woods. As they are staring at the building, a man creeps up to the passenger side window and knocks. The girls all scream but he just asks if they are checking in.
Inside, the front desk worker takes lots of long pauses and moves kind of slowly, so that you’re always second guessing if he’s going to hand someone a pen or murder them. Front Desk Man [FDM] says that not a lot of people check into their hotel anymore. Spencer signs in as “Mary Smith,” and asks for room one. FDM is all, “HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ROOM 1???! …it has great hot water.” Weirdo. Spencer says they had a friend stay here once and asks FDM if he remembers Vivian Darkbloom. FDM hesistates again and says, “nope!” mostly because he’s learned that people that come to Lost Woods don’t want to be found.
Sweeney: In addition to the creeperific delivery of all of FDM’s lines, the lighting and general aesthetic of the external motel shot and inside of their room in the next two scenes all has a very strong (but cheap) Bates Motel vibe to it.
Lor: Agreed.
The girls all leave the lobby area and run outside. Hanna trips and falls into a puddle on their way to their room. Once there, the girls start looking through the room, but Spencer really wants to snoop around the lobby. Aria grabs her coat again and Spencer’s surprised she’s going to tag along. Aria points out that Emily and Hanna are already sitting down and huddled for warmth. They clearly aren’t moving. Spencer tells Aria, “you’re little, but you’re big.” I still hate Aria but this is your friendly reminder that Aria/short references is my third of fourth TP.
Lor: Spencer and Aria break back into the lobby.
In the room, Hanna takes a shower. Emily gets a call from Maya, but the call drops because she doesn’t have signal. Emily goes outside to try and get better signal and we watch Hanna in the shower for a second. The zoomy camera man seems to want us to look at the shower head a lot.
Sweeney: BLONDE IN THE SHOWER! Psycho references continued!
Lor: Lobby. Spencer finds that Alison signed into Lost Woods as Vivian Darkbloom the day before she went missing.
Emily walks outside and behind her, we see a figure all in black run in the background behind her.
Hanna showers and the person in black lets themselves into her room. We see the shadow of this person behind the shower curtain. A phone rings and Hanna ends her shower. She grabs her towel and when she goes out into the room, she finds it’s empty and the door is wide open. We cut to black with dramatic music and I’d like you to imagine that dramatic music as I pass the recap off to Sara.
Sara: After the Not Commercial Break, it’s the next morning and the girls are going over (AND OVER AND OVER) the things they know. They really need to get a crime scene style board going on, so they don’t have to keep reminding themselves. (L: They’d probably just lose it.) As they talk, we see someone in a black hoodie peeping through a spy hole in the next room over. A watches the girls, and it is sufficiently creepy.
Spencer says that they need to put the reservation book back, and Aria complains that she doesn’t want to crawl through the window again. Spencer tells her to just stand guard while she does it because they’re Team Sparia. Well, that is just adorable. Team Sparia leaves and Hanna enternounces to Emily that Caleb can’t take her to the masquerade ball because he’s already fulfilled his guest star obligations. Hanna is bummed because she’s going as Juliet and needs a Romeo to take her. Emily says she’ll be her date, but she’s not dressing like a dude. Peeping A is still watching them from the creepy peephole. #TeamSparia comes back in to say they need to leave, and the girls all rush out.
#TeamSpoby. Spencer finds Toby clearing out some of the debris from the fire Blind!Jenna almost died in. She asks if they’ve figured out what started it, because Toby is apparently now in the loop on police investigations and stuff? IDK. He tells her that the only thing they know is that it wasn’t an accident. Spencer asks if he’ll ever be able to forgive her, but Toby just responds that he has work to do. Before leaving, she tells him that he has every right to hate her, but he doesn’t have to be that guy who won’t let anyone in. Whatever. As she drives off, Toby gets a call from Dr. Sullivan.
Sweeney: Sidebar: Spencer’s wearing a lovely coat in this scene and while it would be totally unsuitable for this Polar Vortex weather, I would totes rock that in the more moderate temperatures of “just above freezing” I pray we’ll see in late winter.
Sara: Blind!Jenna meets an unknown person in a secluded park. After sitting down and taking off her sunglasses, she says, “I’ve thought about this moment so many times. Wondering what I would say to you if I saw you again.” And her American accent is all sorts of terrible right here, by the way. And her eyes are still terrifying. She hands over some clothes to the unknown accomplice and tells him/her that they’ll all be at the party and he/she knows what to do.
Masquerade Ball. The Liars all arrive at the Masquerade Ball, looking fabulous. I’m going to go ahead and say that I like Aria’s look best, but Spencer is a very close second.
Sweeney: I still give the edge to Spencer, but only ever-so-slightly. +1 to that, though. I do like the little rope-belt thing on Hanna’s dress, though.
Sara: Emily says that this would be the perfect place for A to hide and questions where Melissa was when Spencer left the house. Spencer answers that she was in her pajamas, curled up on the couch, WHICH SOUNDS LIKE HEAVEN, AMIRIGHT?
Lor: YEP. And that definitely rules her out of any criminal activities for the rest of the episode. Once you are on the curled up in the couch in pajamas for the night, you are NOT going out anywhere, especially in an elaborate masquerade outfit, right? Just me?
Sweeney: NOT JUST YOU. TOTES LEGIT. Alibi confirmed.
Sara: We are the best detectives.
The girls discuss the plan, as usual: They have three hours to figure out who A is, because the deadline is midnight. They will refuse to give up the phone, because it’s four to one, which are pretty good odds. I guess they haven’t figured out our A-Team theory yet. They split up and plan to meet back up in an hour.
Hanna is wandering around aimlessly when Caleb sneaks up behind her and kisses her neck, saying that he knows who she is. Hanna is excited that Caleb came dressed as Romeo, and he says that Mona is actually the one who put everything together, which is her cue to walk up looking fabulous in purple. Hanna apologizes to her for ditching the day before and promises that they won’t have any secrets between them anymore. Mona laughs it off and tells her to dance with her hot hottie boyfriend before he melts the room. The girls say they love each other and hug before Hanna and Caleb leave to dance.
Alison is at the shop in Brookhaven, dressed in her Vivian Darkbloom attire, when Mona sees her. (Mona is also in her typical nerdy girl wear: glasses, pignails, turtleneck, the usual.) Mona geeks up to Ali and says that it’s so cool she’s there, because it’s like they’re shopping together. She is painfully awkward and cute in this flashback. Mona asks why Ali is dressed that way, and Alison shuts her up by asking if she can tell her a secret. She shares that she’s watching someone across the street and tells Mona to act like she doesn’t know her and scram. Mona asks what she’ll give her to keep her secret, and Ali asks what she wants. “To be popular.” Aw. Mona feels. Alison writes something on the back of a postcard and tears it in half before handing one of the halves to Mona, which ends the Aliback.
Back in the present, Mona says that after that, Alison went all MIA and disappeared. Spencer asks if she saw who Ali was spying on, but Mona didn’t see anything. She assumes it was some guy Alison had a crush on. Spencer realizes that Ali wasn’t being watched by A in Brookhaven; she was the one doing the watching. She starts to run off, but Mona is confused because she hasn’t been getting the A memos from the Liars. Spencer tells her that Ali ran off to that motel to follow A, not to hide from him/her.
Aria wanders around the ball, and we see NotBlind!Jenna following her around before fading to black. Okay.
Lor: Anytime Jenna is involved there is an implied DUN DUN DUN. Jenna could be eating cereal and that would be followed by a fade to black.
Sara: After the Not Commercial Break, Aria is still wandering around when she runs into Ezra. UGH GROSS, NOT FAIR. I want to trade and take the first part of this episode, please. (L: LOLOL. I WAS SO HAPPY.) He tells her that he can’t stay away from her blah blah blah, and she runs into his arms and they kiss and hold each other’s heads.
Sara: Hanna and Caleb dance, and cleanse the taste of EW from my palette. Emily gets a call from Spencer who tells her the new theory about Alison and A. Mona is currently driving Spence back to the motel so they can check out Room 2. Ali always stayed in Room 1, and Spence’s new theory is that A holed up in Room 2, and Ali spied on A from Room 1. Goddamn it, this is getting complicated. Also, there is some bad stuff happening with Mona’s makeup right now. She looks like the Joker was sitting in a sauna for too long. Blech. (L: A+)
Motel. Spencer is having tea with the motel owner, and I just noticed her freaking gorgeous necklace. Werk it, girl. He tells her that it’s so lonely out there that he finds himself talking to his stuffed creatures, which is the sign that you need to GTFO. Spencer jokes that he only has to worry if they start to talk back to him, and he gives her a blank stare like the creepy creep he is. Spencer thanks him for the tea and runs out like the smart girl she is.
Mona and Spencer break into Room 2 and stare in shock before we cut back to the masquerade ball, where Gag and Gaggy are dancing and not leaving any room for Jesus. (L: Jesus doesn’t want any room between them anyway. I’m pretty sure of it.) Ezra tells Aria that since this is their first dance, he wants to see her and takes off both their masks. They kiss, and if I didn’t hate them both and they weren’t breaking the law, it would be a nice scene. Alas.
Emily is wandering around and runs into Paige.
Room 2. The hotel room is basically the creepiest A Lair you ever did see. The walls are covered with photos of Alison and the Liars, newspaper clippings about Ali’s death, and the creepy baby mask from the Halloween episode. Mona asks what it is, and Spencer tells her it’s A’s Lair. DUN DUN DUN.
Sweeney: Back at the dance, Emily and Paige are chatting and Paige apologizes for the other night and the fact that she tried to have a secret relationship with Emily. She has her big girl pants on, telling Emily that she cares about her and wants to be there for her in whatever capacity Emily needs, and so they are now officially friends.
Lor: Hey remember that time Paige tried to drown Emily? LOL. That has nothing to do with anything, I just remembered.
Sara: Young love!
Sweeney: Stalker Motel. Spencer’s looking at a gross dollhouse in which an Ali doll sits in the top room and four Little Liar dolls sit in the room below. Mona finds some drawings which she insists must be A’s costume. Spencer looks them over and says A will be dressed as The Black Swan.
Ball. Hanna walks through the room and spies The Black Swan, but is unsure who it is.
Stalker Motel. Mona placed the call and left a voicemail, but the girls aren’t calling back. Mona offers Spencer gum, but she declines. Spencer finds Ali’s diary and says something about Melissa going as The Black Swan previously. Mona asks if Spencer thinks Melissa would do something to hurt her, though they’ve never shared their Melissa suspicions with Mona. Spencer notices a gum wrapper in Ali’s diary and that villainy makeup she’s wearing and asks for that piece of gum, but Mona was just offering up shit she didn’t have because she needs to go out to her car for more gum.
Lor: What…? What kind of evil mastermind offers gum they don’t even have? (Ahem.)
Sweeney: That alone should have confirmed Spencer’s suspicions.
Ball. The other girls are watching The Black Swan move about the room. Hanna says she’s tall and a size 2, so she hates her already. Plus, TBS talks to Lucas and Jenna, which is super suspicious.
Stalker Motel. Spencer continues snooping around and Mona returns, ominously announcing that she found the gum. Spencer realizes that Mona didn’t call Hanna, because she’s A. I’m not sure why she stalled on this big reveal, but whatever. Mona is now in the classic A hoodie and leather gloves. She congratulates Spencer on her detecting the shit out of things and then hits her IN THE FACE, knocking her out.
Sara: BAMF Mona?
Sweeney: Batshit Crazy Mona, for sure. On the fence about whether I’m willing to call that BAMF Mona.
Ball. The girls follow TBS as she flees the dance. She goes out an emergency exit that locks behind her. Hanna makes a big show of picking up a feather that fell off the dress.
Spencer wakes up in Mona’s car dazed but then panicked.
Back at the ball, Hanna suddenly discovers that her battery is low and data usage is crazy because Rosewood’s ContrivanceTech™ facilitated her discovering at Just! This! Moment! that her phone is set to record everything ever ever each time it’s turned on.
Lor: AMAZING. I think ContrivanceTech™ is my new favorite thing. I mean, don’t buy me any crap from there for Christmas or anything, but I like it.
Sweeney: Mona’s car. Mona gets really murdery, telling Spencer that she needed to talk to her alone so that she could “earn it.” Spencer realizes that she made up the Ali story because Ali was really watching her in Brookhaven. Mona goes on to say that Spencer has the option of joining the A Team or disappearing. (1) Those aren’t really choices. (2) OF COURSE A is multiple people. We’ve been saying this forever though I’m not all that proud of it, because it’s the only possible explanation for A’s omnipotence.
Lor: But we can be a little proud of it, right? A small celebration?
Woohoo.
Sweeney: LOLJK, always proud. Always celebrating. WOOHOO!
Spencer has an incoming call from Aria (on silent?) which she answers with video (HD video too!) and talks about almost killing Hanna as she holds her phone down but angled toward Mona. The other girls gasp accordingly. Mona tells Spencer that she’s not the only genius and those bitches underestimated her. Mona’s barreling down the road and Spencer wisely says something about how Mona won’t make it to LOOKOUT POINT if she doesn’t slow down. The other PLLs head off.
Mona goes on to say that this has nothing to do with Ali and is actually about the fact that the PLL’s took Hanna away from her. STALKER BEST FRIEND. We have a whole new class of meme to introduce in the absence of Fifty Shades!
Sara: I still say Mona and Hanna are the cutest couple on the show, even if Mona tried to murder Han that one time. SHE JUST LOVES HER SO MUCH.
Sweeney: Spencer tries to reason with her, but gives up, asking what the plan is because A always has a plan. Mona implies that she’ll shoot her if she doesn’t join the A Team. Spencer throws the emergency break and runs, just as the other PLLs happen to be catching up to them. Hanna drives straight towards Mona, who chases Spencer on foot. Hanna stops just short of hitting her and Mona has a fucking MELT DOWN and tackles Spencer. She somehow manages to hold her up to a tree, in spite of being much tinier. The tree is adjacent to a cliff. They wrestle a bit and Mona slips. Spencer grabs Mona, but loses her grip and Mona goes tumbling down. The other girls rush to the edge to look.
After a Not Break, police and an ambulance are on the scene and Dr. Sullivan arrives. She apologizes for everything that happened, but (Mon)A threatened her son. Dr. Sullivan notices Hanna’s crying. She’s extra distraught. “I can’t believe this — she was my friend.” As the other girls join the sobbing, someone calls out that Mona’s alive, and we see her waking up as her watch alarm goes off, announcing that it’s midnight.
Sara: I wonder what that alarm was for. Time to kill Spencer? Time to reapply that terrible makeup? I guess we’ll never know…
Sweeney: We zoom in on her face so that we can zoom back out on her sitting in jail. Dr. Sullivan explains that a combination of smarts and POWER ADRENALINE helped Mona be omniscient/omnipotent. So we’re trying to kill the A Team theory? Don’t care. Not buying it. (L: Not that Mona would give up her team.) Dr. Sullivan adds that with enough therapy and meds, Mona can be all right. Mona has a maniacal inner-monologue about how they’re watching but she has great lipstick on (priorities!) so it’s fine. She crazies that the PLLs feeling like this is all over and they’re safe is exactly what “THEY” want. Dual confirmation of Mona’s crazy and the A Team theory.
Sara: Still love Mona, don’t curr.
Sweeney: Outside, Dr. Sullivan begins to explain Mona’s issues, suggesting to me that she’s also very much a part of the team. This is cut off when they spot Toby, waiting by his Sugar Baby Truck. He tells Spencer that pretending not to love her was the hardest thing he’s ever done and they make out. Wait, why was he pretending. Is Toby part of the A Team? PLEASE NOT TOBY.
The Liars walk home, filled with all that relief THEY want them to have. They round a corner to find ambulances outside Maya’s house. Emily goes running and is met by her mother who says that they found a body which they believe is Maya’s. Emily breaks down and the other girls hold as the music croons about lost time. Sadz.
Final A-nonymous of the season: Mona sits in a bed at a psych ward. She looks up and tells someone we can’t see (but who seems to be wearing a red coat), “I did everything you asked me to.” Then the screen turns red. Ze end.
I almost feel like we got somewhere. We got an actual, “This is one of their stalkers” reveal. Like all PLL developments it was one step forward and two steps back because now we now that there are probably others and there’s a bigger mastermind to worry about, but you know, WE LEARNED A THING!
I’m sad about the end of Mona/Hanna cute times, though. Bummer.
Lor: I hadn’t really been enjoying PLL episodes for a bit there, but I enjoyed this one, in a crazy, fast paces, “this be crazy” kind of way. So, yeah, I appreciated that we learned a thing. And I wouldn’t but an end to Mona/Hanna cute times yet. If these people still have Aria/Ezra as a thing, I’m sure they can think of a way to keep the Mona/Hanna interactions alive. You never know.
Next time: We join the Liars a summer later in Pretty Little Liars S03 E01 – It Happened ‘That Night.’
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something with three kids who spends an embarrassing amount of time watching teen television dramas. There's a whole lot of Internet out there, and I plan on reading all of it before I die.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
